I came across an old W.A.D. :Date: Sat Jun 5 00:07:29 EDT 1999Subject: A.Word.A.Day--mahatmaX-Bonus: Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much of life. So aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something. -Henry David Thoreau

mahatma (muh-HAT-muh) noun

1. In India and Tibet, one of a class of persons venerated for great knowledge and love of humanity.

2. Mahatma. Used as a title of respect for a person renowned for spirituality and high-mindedness.

[Sanskrit mahatma : maha-, great. See meg-. + atma, life, spirit.]

I have of course heard of Mahatma Gandhi, but I had assumed in my ignorance that it was his first name. I gather it is a title. What was the gentle man's actual name, then?

Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (1869-1948), Indian nationalist leader, who established his country's freedom through a nonviolent revolution.Gandhi, also known as Mahatma Gandhi, was born in Porbandar in the present state of Gujarat on October 2, 1869, and educated in law at University College, London. In 1891, after having been admitted to the British bar, Gandhi returned to India and attempted to establish a law practice in Bombay (now Mumbai), with little success. Two years later an Indian firm with interests in South Africa retained him as legal adviser in its office in Durban. Arriving in Durban, Gandhi found himself treated as a member of an inferior race. He was appalled at the widespread denial of civil liberties and political rights to Indian immigrants to South Africa. He threw himself into the struggle for elementary rights for Indians.

and another detail i just came across..Re: was born in Porbandar in the present state of Gujarat -- this was a salt producing area of India, where sea salt was produced. India was "salt self sufficient" before british rule, but was forced to stop producing salt for itself, and to buy much more expensive English salt. this destroyed a local industry, and the imported salt, was expensive, and taxed.

The area he was born in had been poor, but people always had work, and could live. When the salt works were closed, there was no other industry, few farms, and now the area was devistated. His "salt campaign", open defience of the law against indians producing salt for local consumption, was an a tremendous act of civil disobedience, and one that was easy for other copy, and they did.

(spinning, and using home spun cloth was an other campaign, but less successful, since its harder to learn how to do write and requires more tool.. Sea Salt is created by evaporation, and isn't that hard to do. )

Thank you, Dr. Bill, for the memory jog and lesson. And thank you, Helen. Mercy, your post made me think of our discussion in Sunday School yesterday. Our class is embarking on a (probably not in-depth) study comparing Christianity and Islam. That class, like this group, rather frequently gets off-topic, and yesterday somebody asked why do we always seem to think we have to go out and conquer people? As a race, we seem bent on taking what others have, for one reason or another. We've (our class) been watching tapes of the Discovery Channel's series on the conflict in the Middle East, and decided that it is unlikely that an outsider could truly understand all the reasons for the ongoing hostility. I've been given to understand that the same holds true for the conflict in Ireland. Sigh. Still and all, I am optimistic that, some generations down the road, the world will be primarily peaceful.

I read the Old Testament straight through during a huge snow storm that kept returning back in about 1984 or 1985.

My biggest impression was that of one battle followed by another. Not saying that there wasn't a lot of other information and inspiration, but that biggest impression was: An awful lot of battles.

And, you know, it even can be observed between a brother and sister, sitting in the back seat of a car, drawing an imaginary line between themselves, exactly 50-50 possession of whichever side of the car, and then the dare to cross the line... In fact, for a mile or two or three, crossing that line becomes the One Desire!

It seems poignant and significant that Gandhi was assassinated by one of his own people (a Hindu) rather than "disappeared" by the British. Many people would see a complete denial of violence as a denial of their freedom and a denial of their right to protect themselves. If you subscribe to non-violence and violence is committed against you (or more significantly against those you love) you just have to take it on the chin, accept it and live with it - and there are no half-measures. You need to be a saint, or at least to have a perspective far wider than that of individual lives.

It says a great deal for Gandhi's followers - and perhaps for the Indian people in general - that they achieved what they did and stuck to their guns (or rather the absence of guns).

Sadly, I don't think Gandhi's story will ever be repeated. The world's a much smaller, more cynical, self-serving place, and most of its objectives are short-term. Doves get shot as often as hawks, as both endanger vested interests.

We're back to the relationship between Western and Eastern cultures again, with the school report still saying "could do better".

Thanks, Shona. I don't have time at the moment to read the whole thing, but I copied and e-mailed it to myself for later. Doves get shot as often as hawks, as both endanger vested interests. Sigh. Yes. Damn greed. I did read far enough to see the part that he was murdered by a fanatic. Fanatics can cause a very great deal of harm, can't they? What is it that makes people become fanatics, anyway?

I suppose we're talking being possessed here, aren't we? The danger is the "uncritical devotion" part, which makes everything black-and-white, with no shades of grey and no compromise.

It has the huge benefit of simplicity and [thanks eta] freedom from doubt. Quite easily achieved, too - you just short out your faculties of reason, your concerns and troubles, and let your unequivocal passions guide you; although I suspect they only appear unequivocal because they get hitched to a ready-made creed.

It's terribly easy to mistake relief from discomfort and uncertainty as a sign you're going in the right direction.As such fanaticism is appealing and highly infectious, even to its enemies.

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